Smiths Group drops 14 percent

Most European equities markets were higher Wednesday, but London’s FTSE 100 and FTSE 250 both saw declines on the session.

The 100 was down 0.29 percent to 3,900.25 while the 250 dropped 0.51 percent to 6,371.11.

Engineering company Smiths Group (LSE: SMN) turned in the worst performance on the 100 as it dropped 14.36 percent.

The FTSE Eurofirst 300 was 0.37 percent higher to 743.57 while the CAC-40 added 0.66 percent to 2,893.45, the Dax was up 0.86 percent to 4,223.29 and the IBEX gained 1.04 percent to 8,072.4.

Markets were mixed in the Asia-Pacific region as well.

In Tokyo, the Topix index added 0.71 percent to 818.49 and the Mothers market was up 3.53 percent to 308.7 but the Nikkei 225 was down 0.1 percent to 8,479.

South Korea’s Kospi added 0.6 percent to 1,229.02 while in Australia the Sydney Ordinaries and the S&P/ASX200 each gained 0.82 percent, to 3,546.2 and 3,609.3 respectively, the Taiex was up 1.99 percent to 5,346.38 in Taiwan and India’s Sensex was 2.08 percent higher to 9,667.9.

Decliners included the Straits Times Index with a decline of 0.86 percent to 1,691.68, while the Shanghai Composite was down 2 percent to 2,291.56 and the Hang Seng dropped 2.07 percent to 13,622.11.

At just before 2 p.m. in New York, the Dow Jones Industrial Average was up 0.67 percent to 7,711.66 while the Nasdaq Composite had added 0.19 percent to 1,519.34 and the S&P 500 had gained 0.48 percent to 809.98.

Crude oil prices, copper, and grains prices were all lower, but precious metals prices saw gains.

The Norwegian krone was down after the central bank there cut the deposit rate to 2 percent, while the US dollar dropped after comments from US Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner.

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